NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday had a subtle message for the Congress, which fought the assembly electionswithout opposition alliance and lost to the BJP in 3 Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Mamata claimed that the BJP will not be able to win the 2024 Lok Sabha elections if there is proper seat sharing among the opposition parties.

“A strategy has to be finalised. If there is proper consensus on seat sharing ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the saffron party will not be able to retain power at the Centre,” she said.
Mamata’s party the Trinamool Congress has claimed that the BJP’s victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana were more of a failure of the Congress than a success story of the saffron party. The West Bengal chief minister attributed BJP’s victory in Rajasthan to split of opposition votes in the state. She also claimed that BJP had little reasons to rejoice because its victory margins were slim.

The Congress, which lost in all the three states it had won 5 years back in 2018, has been under fire from its INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) allies for ignoring them during the assembly elections.
The INDIA bloc has been quick to distance itself from the Congress’s failure in the assembly elections. Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said that the results in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh cannot be viewed as the failure of the INDIA bloc.
TMC MP and party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had a word of caution for the Congress.
“If Congress wants everyone to unite and fight the BJP, I would like to tell them that there isn’t much time. The effort to bring everyone together has begun. If you want everyone to fight together, it should reflect in your actions not your words,” Abhishek, who is nephew of Mamata Banerjee, said.
The Congress got into an ugly spat with Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party over seat sharing in Madhya Pradesh for the assembly elections. Another INDIA bloc party Arvind Kejriwal‘s Aam Aadmi Party also contested the MP elections separately. The Congress did not take any initiative for a joint contest in the state. A planned joint rally of INDIA partners in Bhopal was cancelled.
Congress will be at the receiving end when the leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc meet in Delhi on December 6 to chalk out a strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
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